A government scheme to give teenagers the morning-after pill free of charge at
pharmacies in a bid to cut down on unwanted pregnancies has led to a rise in
sexually transmitted diseases, research shows.

A study has found that the policy simply encouraged young people to have unprotected sex and had failed to cut down the number of under-age pregnancies.

Professors Sourafel Girma and David Paton of Nottingham University compared areas of England where the scheme was introduced with those where it was not or where it was implemented later.

They found that pregnancy rates for girls aged under 16 remained the same while the rates of sexually transmitted diseases increased by 12 per cent in those areas where the pill was available free from chemists.

Prof Paton said: “We find that offering the morning-after pill free of charge didn’t have the intended effect of cutting teenage pregnancies but did have the unfortunate side of effect of increasing sexually transmitted infections.

“By focusing on sexually transmitted infections, it allows us to test whether there is an impact on sexual risk-taking, and that seems to be the implication.”

The report, The Impact of Emergency Birth Control on Teen Pregnancy and STIs, will be published in the Journal of Health Economics.

The government is now expected to overhaul it teenage pregnancy strategy.

However, the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC) disputed the accuracy of the study's findings and claimed that teen pregnancy rates were staying constant "against a background of skyrocketing conception rates elsewhere".

Alastair Buxton, PSNC head of NHS services, said: "Given that the data this study uses was gathered between eleven and seven years ago, it’s not hard to see how the authors arrived at such shaky conclusions.

What is harder to fathom is how it could be seen as a legitimate basis to make a judgment on valuable sexual health services.

"At the time this data was collected sexual health services were commissioned in a very different way; seven years on, these services are usually delivered in conjunction with condom supply, STI screening and even oral contraception, providing a joined up approach to improving sexual health among target groups."

Although most young women use at least one method of contraception, teenage pregnancy rates in Britain are the highest in western Europe.

Just under half of all pregnancies among 15 to 18-year-olds lead to a termination.

The number of STDs diagnosed in children under 16 has risen by 58 per cent in five years, with chlamydia now the most common infection.

Norman Wells, director of the Family Education Trust, said: “International research has consistently failed to find any evidence that emergency birth control schemes achieve a reduction in teenage conception and abortion rates.

“But now we have evidence showing that not only are such schemes failing to do any good, but they may in fact be doing harm.”

A recent study found that a fifth of young women used the morning-after pill in the last year, many after drinking heavily or taking drugs.

It prompted fears that many women were taking to "unnecessary risks" with their health by using the pill after losing control on nights out.

Among 18 to 21-year-olds, one in 50 said they preferred using it as "a regular form of contraception".